positivity

Improv for health and wellbeing

December 29, 2011

As mentioned in a previous post, I was interviewed over the phone for an article in Natural Health magazine – published earlier this month. I’ve been given a pdf of the article, so if you’d like to check it out – here it is.  It’s great to see improvisation being spoken about as more than just a performance art, because it has so much more to offer.

I talked about the subject matter in a blog post in July – take a look.

How can improv help with nervousness?

June 28, 2011

 

My Super Six Tips for Success

1. Simplicity Rules

There is a technique called “start in the middle” and another which says “speak to know what you want to say” and both of these are telling us essentially, to get on with it! Begin with what seems obvious. Just speak – start somewhere – stop procrastinating or worrying.

2. Question Yourself

When preparing to give a speech in public, don’t write down a script but do write down questions to yourself, so that during the speech you are essentially answering those questions in an improvised way. If you want to try improvising a whole speech, you can practice at home by picking a random topic and speaking for a couple of minutes on it.

3. What could possibly go wrong?

Shift your attention from yourself to others. Nerves come from anticipating what will go wrong so if you can switch that off and be in the moment, the nerves should disappear.

4. You, boring? No way!

People are often worried that they are boring. It’s important to remember that what is ordinary to you can often be a revelation to others – you are more interesting than you think…

5. Mistakes are offers

Nerves arise from fear of making mistakes. In improv, we love and embrace mistakes. We actually call them something else entirely – we call them offers. They are an offer to your scene partner to use or explore. In performance, they are often the way that audience relates to you. The audience are usually willing you to succeed and are very supportive when make a mistake or give an entirely unexpected offer.

6. Yes, Yes, Yes

In improv, we use a game called Yes And (see earlier blog posts for more on this) . Using the game of Yes And, we become more positive. Positivity is something associated with confident people, so saying yes equals confidence.

 

 

 

Interesting three letter words….

September 11, 2010

Two words interest me in particular, they are BUT and AND.

I spent an interesting afternoon delivering a workshop to a group of music teachers. One of their key issues was negativity in the workplace. They wanted to learn about being more positive. I used a game called Yes And! to explore this.

We started off by discussing the following terms:

  • Turning Against (which equates to blocking entirely)
  • Turning Away (which equates to committing, begrudgingly or with conditions)
  • Turning Towards (which equates to enthusiastically committing)

The teachers were asked to get into pairs and make offers to each other and then to use the different terms above to make a response.

For example:

Offer:

Let’s go to the beach

Selection of responses:

Turning Against: No, I hate sand (totally blocked, nowhere to go from here)

Turning Away: OK, but only if we can go by car and be home for the 6 o’clock news (conditions!)

Turning Towards: Yes And let’s get an ice cream on the way! (Notice how this response commits to the offer and adds something to enhance it)

We continued this for a while and discussed how the different types of responses changed the energy or the dynamic of the conversation.

At the point where these principles were clear and established, we played more with the Turning Away and the Turning Towards. We tried giving the same response but in different ways.

For example:

Offer:

Let’s paint this wall

Selection of responses:

Turning Away: Yes, but only if we paint it red

Turning Towards: Yes, and let’s pain it red

It was at this point, we recognised that sometimes our responses are delivered in a negative way and this can hinder our progress.

In the example above, we both gave the same response but we said it in different ways. If we use the word BUT, we appear to be taking some power or positivity away from the person’s offer/idea/suggestion/request.

If we use the word AND, we appear to be adding something to the person’s idea. We are saying yes and committing and offering our contribution, to enhance their idea.

I asked the group to go away from the workshop and keep considering, whether they could introduce an AND instead of a BUT in more of their communication.

Try it yourself and see the difference it makes to the way you feel and the way others respond.

Just discovered an interesting podcast that makes reference to the game YES AND…it shows you how the tool can be used and developed further beyond my use mentioned in the blog